Jesus and Christianity

‘Sri Paramahamsa Yogananda, a great Hindu saint who was sent by his guru to America to serve as a ‘spiritual link’ between Christianity and Hinduism, had a deep insight into this distinction between the Christ-Consciousness and Jesus the Christ….‘He wrote in his book ‘Man’s Eternal Quest’: “I am glad that Christianity was not called ‘Jesusism’ because ‘Christianity’ is a much broader word. There is a difference between Jesus and Christ. Jesus is the name of the little human body in which the vast Christ Consciousness was born. Although the Christ Consciousness manifested in the body of Jesus, it cannot be limited to one human form. It would be a metaphysical error to say that the omnipresent Christ Consciousness is circumscribed by the body of one human being.”…. This beautiful book is also there in our library… ‘You can also read the book ‘One Christ and Many Religions’ by Dr. S J Samartha so that you can understand well this difference between Jesus of Nazareth and Christ, the eternal Word of God…..‘Christ-Consciousness enables one to forgive one’s offenders and bless them just as Jesus the Christ was able to do from the cross, rising above the agony of his own suffering death. India needs this Christ-Consciousness, not Christianity, to be healed of her inner and historical wounds and to be made whole and healthy. What India needs is not the western Christian religion, but the eastern Jesus the Christ, and the Christ-Consciousness embodied by him…..‘Forgiveness is the key to health, happiness and peace. For India, this is very important. We need to forgive and forget what happened in the past and look ahead with hope and confidence. History does not march backward, but forward… No individual, no religion and no nation can ever achieve greatness by fighting over the wrongs committed in the past. This is where India’s spiritual hospitality and heritage have to play an important role. A spirituality of peace is also a spirituality of love and forgiveness. Mother India has to draw strength and vitality from her deep spiritual resources and treasures in this historic task.….‘This is the second spiritual law of peace. Let us recollect it once again. It says that repentance, forgiveness and reconciliation are preconditions for grace to take roots and bear fruits in our lives. Have you understood this well, my son?’ the Baba asked Atma Prakash.‘Yes guruji, I have understood this very well’ Atma Prakash replied. Excerpts from Integral Revolution

About The Author

Swami Sachidananda Bharathi is an Indian Air Force officer turned spiritual guide and an apostle of peace and love. He is the patron of 'Indian Thoughts'. He represented India in the 'Millennium World Peace Summit of Religious and Spiritual Leaders' held under UNO, in 2000. He has founded Dharma Bharathi Mission.

Related Articles

We are all great idol worshippers of the first order. And the great idol we worship is physically our own body, and mentally our own ego. The time, energy, and money we spend and the pain we endure in shaping, grooming, and beautifying our body is beyond any description. There is no length to which persons will not go, and no effort they will spare to achieve their narcissistic goals. Look at the fashion designers who design clothes to cover as well us to reveal and high-light our natural endowments that were called not long ago pudenda (those things that one needs to be ashamed of). There was a wedding to which I was invited where a prayer was to be said at home before the bride was to be sent to the church for the ceremony. I was asked to say the prayer before the great gathering. It was supposed to be at first five minutes; at the last minute to save time it was shortened to two minutes to say a few words and then a short prayer. Bride’s father asked me to do this. During the prayer the bride’s father who stood close to me looked twice at his watch. I took the liberty to comment on this. I will not be called to such functions in the future, I know. So what? I need to remind you that there was time for over an hour of photography before the prayer. What does it say about us as a society? The keepers of religious rituals accommodate very well the wants of the consumer society lest their own standard of living will be imperilled. Yet we worship Christ who whipped and drove away the vendors and moneychangers who turned the temple – his father’s house of worship – into a place of commercial enterprise. The chief priests were enraged at what he did. Similar actions of Christ tolled his death knell. The consumer society has a seductively clever way of packaging stuff that we become willing prey to its trickery and deception. But then who is the consumer society? It is us. The society that we create seduces us. And we become a one big happy community of hypocrites because we do not want to lose our own share of goodies. If you talk against it be sure you will be ostracized and crucified. Talk only at your own peril of being an outcaste. The consumer society that militates against the Kingdom of God has the power to make us helpless and losers in worldly pursuits and choice ecclesiastical positions of power. I can assure you that no bishop who openly talks like Christ did will get to the centers of ecclesiastical power that rules the Church that was supposed to be founded by the humble carpenter of Nazareth. It is also our ego who does not want to forgive and get reconciled, who wants to nurse our hurts and take revenge, and who wants to settle the score for every mistreatment or slight. Shall we then continue to worship our own bodies and massage our own egos? This is a choice that we all need to make. This is a choice not to be left for the trepid old age crippled by fear and physical infirmities intent on getting to heaven through endless pious rituals and devotions.

We struggle with priorities on day-to-day basis. People have devised various techniques to set priorities to achieve time management, but here I would like to talk about priorities we take to keep us happy and satisfied. Few years back when I was sitting in a meeting of top company executives, discussing about company’s objective, a gentleman from accounts background clearly spelled out that the primary objective of any business organization should be maximizing profits. Obviously the type of meeting it was, almost everyone agreed. People who did not agree kept silent. Many years have passed and this sentence, spelling out the primary objectives still reverberates in my mind. The reason is that I often see people, organizations, governments all seem to be running behind this primary objective only. I see government focusing on making larger roads, then inside road of towns. I see local level establishments putting their energies on decorating buildings, rather than finding right garbage disposal mechanisms. At personal levels people keep spending on clothes and electronic gadgets, than taking up a self-development course. People have lot of time on mobile than to talk to their parents. I know that old father of a rich person kept filling his eye drop bottles with water as this person always forgot to bring a fresh eye drop bottle in time. That is how we set priorities. We try to maximize financial gains and end up gaining stress and all sorts of complexities. Setting the right priorities can simplify our life. Let us detoxify our needs.

‘The second spiritual law of peace, my son, is that ‘repentance, forgiveness and reconciliation are preconditions for grace to take roots and bear fruits in our lives’…..Please repeat’ the Baba told his disciple‘Repentance, forgiveness and reconciliation are preconditions for grace to take roots and bear fruits in our lives’ Atma Prakash repeated. “Good” the Baba said and continued: ‘The light of sun and the grace of God are freely available to all. But if the windows and doors are closed, the light of the sun cannot enter the room. Similarly, if our hearts and minds are closed, the grace of God cannot enter into our lives. Repentance, forgiveness and reconciliation are the keys to open the doors of our hearts and minds to divine grace…. ‘Through repentance, forgiveness and reconciliation we also humble ourselves. Humility opens our hearts and minds to the grace of God. ‘Repent, the Kingdom of God is at hand.’ This was the call of Sadguru Jesus Christ to humanity…‘Repentance is turning away from sins and turning towards God. It is an essential prerequisite for the light of grace to shine forth in one’s heart and life. We have already seen that without divine grace there can be no lasting peace and happiness in one’s life…‘An unforgiving mind is the breeding ground of many human problems. Much of our ailments today are psychosomatic in their origins…. ‘An unforgiving person is prone to psychosomatic sicknesses. The World Health Organization, WHO, estimates that more than 60% of sicknesses in the present world are psychosomatic in their origins……. ‘The term ‘Kingdom of God’ implies a grace-filled existence. It is within us and among us. It begins within one’s own self, here and now. ‘Begin with self and begin within self’ has to be the methodology of anyone who seeks the Kingdom of God. This is a truth upheld by almost all religions and their enlightened saints and sages….‘One of the major tragedies of India and of the modern world is lack of forgiveness and reconciliation. India is a deeply wounded country; wounded by her own caste and class prejudices and exploitations, wounded by communal conflicts and violence, and wounded by external aggression and foreign subjugation. India needs forgiveness and reconciliation to be healed from within…‘Without forgiveness there can be no reconciliation, and without reconciliation there can be no inner healing, and without inner healing, there can be no peace. Without peace there will be no development, growth and happiness. The nation will continue to suffer from poverty, illiteracy and sickness and other evils, even if it has the best of political leaders to rule…. ‘Religions and religious communities in India have to learn and promote the art and science of forgiveness and reconciliation…‘Forgiveness needs repentance. One needs to be really sorry about one’s wrong deeds, about the falsehood one was party in spreading, and about the damages one has done to others knowingly or unknowingly…‘Love is the source of forgiveness. It is also the inspiration for forgiveness…. We have seen that true love is always forgiving. It does not keep an account of the wrongs done by others. Without love, forgiveness is impossible…..‘Our ability for love comes from the divine love that we receive from God, the source of love. We need the grace of God even to forgive ourselves and others. It is here one can experience the importance of God’s universal ‘atonement’ in, with and through the Christ-Spirit of forgiveness and reconciliation…. ‘As we have seen earlier, this Christ-Spirit and Christ-Consciousness has its ‘divine standard’ in Jesus of Nazareth. But this Christ-Consciousness is neither confined to Jesus of Nazareth the Christ nor is it limited to Christian Churches. It is available to anyone anywhere anytime who seeks, knocks and asks for it, irrespective of his or her religious affiliations…‘I myself am a living witness to this truth. I was never a ‘Christian’. I do not belong to any ‘Church’. Yet, I could experience this Christ-Consciousness in my life. God’s free gift of His Christ is often misappropriated and made a saleable commodity by Christian Churches….. Liberating Christ from these narrow sectarian Christian Churches is an urgent need of the era. The world need Christ not Churchianity….

When you meet your old school friends after a long time, your body and mind systems react in an all together different way. Old memories bring a different kind of nostalgia and even the wrong doings and stressed relationships of the past can bring positive energy in the current days. A man was caught by tribals in a jungle. It was the day of sacrifice. The tribals decided to give sacrifice of this man to please their Idol. When the sacrifice ceremonies started, this man requested the tribal king to give him some time so that he can say a final good bye to his relatives in a nearby village. The king refused, as he could not trust this man. Another man within the tribals came out of the crowd and requested the king to grant him some time and offered himself for the sacrifice if the visitor doesn’t turn up. The visitor returned, met his relatives and started his return journey, during which he fell from the horse. Meanwhile the scheduled time was getting over and the king ordered sacrifice of the man of his tribe. Some how in just nick of the time visitor also returned. Now both these men started offering themselves for the sacrifice and started fighting. When the king tried to get into the details of this fight, he found that they were actually childhood friends who were now ready to give their lives for the other friend. Seeing this the King’s heart also melted and he forgave both the friends. He also announced to stop the tradition of human sacrifice. True friendship like this may not be so easy to find these days, but I can definitely say that a feeling to do something for your good old friends still exists in our society. Let us share it openly if we also have this feeling for our friends.

After their short meditation the Baba began with the first spiritual law of peace.‘The first spiritual law of peace is that ‘the source of true and lasting peace and happiness in the world is the grace of God that is available to all who surrender themselves willingly and consciously to Divine Providence’….. Please repeat it.’‘We must remember always, as we have already seen earlier, that our understanding of God and the true attributes of God are evolving realities. It varies according to the level of consciousness,especially of those who are given the grace to have an insight into the nature of the one true God. As we very well know, human beings are very much limited in their capacity to grasp the Ultimate Reality. Only divine grace alone can give us an insight into the true nature and attributes of God. Here too, one has to be very humble….‘Pride is the biggest block in the path of truth and grace. Humility is the key to spiritual growth and enlightenment….‘We need to learn to be humble. We also need to learn to let go. Renunciation and transcendence are essential for spiritual growth. But the most important virtue needed for our spiritual growth is humility. Humility is learnt often through humiliations.… We have already learnt some of these spiritual principles…‘Self-surrender, Saranagathi, is the sure way to gain an insight into the nature of the one true God. This is also the path taught by all religions….‘Self-surrender brings divine grace into one’s life. This divine grace is available to all alike. It is the source of true and lasting peace in one’s life and in the world. ‘Know God, know peace. No God, no peace’ is a dictum that contains within it the wisdom and experience of saints and sages from all religious traditions….‘Thus, sooner or later all sincere seekers of truth and peace will come to realize and experience the reality that the source of true and lasting peace and happiness is the grace of God that is available to all who surrender themselves willingly and consciously to Divine Providence, that is, to the grace of God’ the Baba said and closed his eyes. He remained silent for few minutes.* * * * * * * * *‘I had gone through an encounter with death at the prime of my life. I was an atheist at that time. But, experiences thereafter have taught me that life is a gift and grace of an ever loving God, given to us free..’ the Baba said. He continued: ‘Getting up in the morning everyday in itself is a miracle… The heart beats, the lungs breathe and millions of cells in our body function without our knowledge or permission…..‘An awareness of this mystery of life in itself will lead us to an act of ‘self-surrender’ to this ever compassionate love-force, God. We are here because of divine grace, we live because of divine grace, everything in the world exists because of divine grace, yes my son, because of divine grace….….‘The source of true peace and happiness is also this divine grace. This is the first spiritual law of peace…Have you understood this well?’The Baba asked Atma Prakash.‘Guruji, you mentioned that humility is often developed through humiliations. Can you please explain this to me?’ Atma Prakash requested his guruji.‘Humiliations are painful experiences, my son. It affects our ego directly.Ego has a tendency to react first and fast negatively. The result will be anger, resentment, hatred or revenge towards those who humiliate us….‘But instead, if we consciously control our tendency to react negatively, and send out some positive vibrations to the offender, we will find that the ego gets humbled and purified in the process’ the Baba replied.‘Thank you, guruji.’ Atma Prakash prostrated before his guruji and got up.He went for a long walk into the forest. At any time he has something serious to reflect on, he went to the forest for a long walk.He was reflecting on what he learnt today, especially on what was said by his guruji about developing humility through humiliations. This was indeed a new insight for him.

As sharers of this immense and great universe, we are kings and queens, and more. We, that is, those of us who live in the realm of the Spirit. We are aware of who we are. We revere everyone. But we do not revere anyone specially on the basis of his or her birth status. Besides kings and queens came about as a perversion of God’s creation. Think about it. God did not create anyone as lord over anyone. The perversion results when anyone thinks that someone is nobler or higher, and needs to be specially revered or honored just because of his or her birth in a certain lineage. The media goes after them because that is what keeps them in existence among the overwhelming majority of the unenlightened. Many kings historically were thugs and evil men who because of their muscle power and craftiness subjugated others and began to rule over them. Their so-called subjects owed fealty to them because of their fear. They would have been in our times tried in courts and put away in maximum security prisons for their heinous crimes. Let us take one famous example: Henry VIII of England, whose six wives had to fear execution, and from whom descended the present royal family of UK. He wanted to divorce his first wife so he could remarry and get a male heir for his throne. He had already gotten dispensation from the Pope to marry the widow of his older brother. He unleashed his own brand of lustful reformation breaking away from the Roman Catholic Church, and established his own church and appointed an archbishop who gave him the divorce he wanted. He had also slept with one of his wives’ mother. He murdered four of his wives. His sixth wife survived him. Because of fear he did not kill his first wife as her uncle was the powerful king Spain. He clutched on to power by letting his vassals and henchmen loot the enormous wealth of the Roman Catholic Church and its monasteries. He murdered even his powerful minister, St. Thomas More, for following his conscience. In India what about emperor Aurangzeb who killed his own brother, the legal heir to the throne, and presented his head on a platter, after stamping it on ground, piercing it with a sword, and spitting on it, to his father, Shah Jahan, at supper time, whom he had imprisoned in the palace on the Yamuna river on the opposite side of Taj Mahal. In our own kingdom of Travancore Marthanda Varma , king of Travancore killed bot the sons of his uncle, the king, after succeeding him to consolidate his power. Tipu Sultan of Mysore, besides plundering and devastating crops, the livelihood of people, made burger out of the foreskins of the British soldiers whom he captured, and forced them to eat it. What about the Popes who is supposed to represent Christ, born in the poorest of circumstances in a manger? They thought they had divine right and power to rule the temporal and the spiritual world? In clinical psychology and psychiatry this would be considered to be delusions of grandeur. But they were serious and had the wherewithal to enforce their whims. Theologically no Pope, no Sankaracharya, no God-man or God-woman is holier than any one of us whether we are more than kings/queens or not. The world that is opposed to the spirit of Christ will say that the claim of being more than kings or queens is like the “grapes are sour” rationalization of the tired and frustrated wolf in the fable. What about me? If I said what I am saying now at a different time, say 70 years ago, my head could have been chopped off. I do not like to pass through places ruled by kings and queens if I can help it. Let the world win this argument as I am satisfied with my sweet rationalization that they may attribute to me. The world’s spiritual leaders also need to let go off false titles coming from obscurantist theological claims of the dark Middle Ages.Let me explain why I consider myself to be and all others to be as kings and queens if not more. “All human beings are born free and equal in rights and dignity,” states the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948) of the United Nations. No human being who believes in this declaration can be a king or a queen. Now I have all that I need by God’s grace. I do not control anybody. I live in the moderate climate of Munnar endowed with sumptuous natural beauty rarely seen in other parts of the world. I live in an ashram run by dedicated, loyal, loving, and caring helpers/workers whose service cannot be bought by money alone as love responds to love. Our cows – Ponni, Malini, Ramani, Manjula – and their calves Meera, Maya, and Bert Lalaji (this is a compromise, because Mataji wanted an American name; he is generally known as Lalaji though). I live a simple holistic life close to the land. I can live a worldly, luxurious life if I want to, but my conscience does not permit that. I swim in a cool pool/reservoir filled by gravitation with water coming from the mountain springs. Tantran, our dog, is full of love, but does not know how to express it without jumping on you! I can move around freely without a bodyguard.

While suffering from viral fever last week, I did get some extra time to think and study about viruses. Being a Naturopath and Aromatherapist myself, I usually prepare my own medications. This article is a post viral product when I started comparing the nature of viruses with many real life entities. You may have heard that the virus is lifeless until it is attached to some living entity. For this reason most antibiotics are not able to directly confront the viral diseases. Virus shields itself in the outside world as it is able to pretend that it is a harmless, lifeless cell. There are many people in real life also who pretend to be harmless, but they become devastating when they get the opportunity to find a base. Our political people often provide this base in the urge of getting and holding the power. In the International scenario we can see that fire-arms were supplied consciously to many rebellion groups by the nations which are now most vulnerable against terrorism. Many such viruses take a shelter behind the religious masks to empower themselves and then do all sorts of devastations later on. It is true that without such masks and substrates these viruses are lifeless. An ice-cream distributor finds such a substrate in the instructions of some terror group and he kills hundreds of people on the roads of Nice in France. Some group of viruses found the base in speeches of some self labeled preacher, and they selectively kill many in a restaurant in Bangladesh. Antidote for all kinds of viruses needs to be found. Before the biological virus, we need to do some serious research on this “Thought Virus”. How come some people are able to implant thought viruses so easily? Something in our social systems must have failed in past few years. Governments, legal systems, military forces are not powerful enough to fight this menace. Society need to provide some solutions. History has many examples of social reformers who could make impact in such situations earlier. We know about Gandhi, Martin Luther King, Mandela, Mother Teresa and the Great Jesus himself. I am getting an intuition as if such a reformer is already born. He will give us light to get rid of all such viruses. But this time he will not embody into one individual. Each one of you will get his powers and will be able to rise against the thought viruses. Are you ready? The power will soon be inside you.

‘Today you have completed one year of sadhana and tapasya in this Ashram, my son. You have done very well so far. But we have to continue deepening our spirit and broadening our consciousness. It is an ongoing process that we should continue till the end of life….‘We will discuss in our next seven sessions about a holistic philosophy of peace that is so much needed in this present era. Your own life-mission, my son, is to be a prophet of peace in a violent world….You have to lay a strong foundation for a new World Order for a culture of peace…‘People all over the world are hungering and thirsting for peace today. They seek peace through acquisition of wealth and power, and also through enjoyment of pleasures, only to be disillusioned at the end. They come to realize late in their lives that wealth, power or pleasure is not the real source of peace. These are often obstacles in the path of true peace. But this realization comes sometimes quite late in life, when there is no possibility of retracing one’s steps and reorienting one’s life….‘Nations talk of peace in terms of absence of war. They create strong Armies, Navies and Air Forces, and pile up more and more deadly bombs and missiles as deterrents of war….. Religions are promoting divisions and conflicts rather than harmony and peace in the world…..‘All things put together, we realize that nation-states and religions, as they are today, cannot create a culture of peace in the world.’ The Baba looked at Atma Prakash. He was listening attentively.‘Then how can we hope to find peace in the world, guruji ?’ Atma Prakash asked.The Baba seemed to be reflecting on the question. Then he said: ‘First of all we will need a holistic spiritual philosophy of peace. That is what we are trying to provide through the seven spiritual laws of peace that we will be discussing later….‘We will also need sovereign spiritual persons and integrated basic communities of peace. They will have to live by and promote this spiritual philosophy of peace. Such sovereign spiritual persons and integrated basic communities will be the catalysts and seedbeds of a true and lasting culture of peace in the world….’The Baba stopped and looked into the eyes of Atma Prakash who was all attention…..He continued:‘More than 80% of people all over the world believe in the transcendental dimension of life and follow one religion or the other. That means religion still plays an important role in the lives and affairs of people all over the world. This will also imply that peace in the world will be impossible without peace among religions in the world. For us in India, it is very important to remember this truth if we are to build a great new India of peace, prosperity and power….. ‘Religion is very important for us. We cannot root them out from the society, as they tried to do in erstwhile USSR. Religion gives meaning and purpose to our lives. Without it, we can be totally lost…‘But today religions have also become divisive and destructive forces. We need to go beyond religion to spirituality if we are to find a way out of the present crisis. It is spirituality that can unite religions and humanity at large. Spirituality is also the goal and aim of all religions. We need today, more than any other time before, a spirituality of unity and peace. …..‘We need to build our nation and the world on the strong foundation of a socio-spiritual philosophy of peace. I have over the years formulated seven spiritual laws that can together provide a strong foundation for such a socio-spiritual philosophy of peace. I have termed these seven spiritual laws of peace as ‘Sapta Rishi’ and the socio-spiritual philosophy constituted by them as ‘Dharmodaya’, my son.’ The Baba stopped and was silent as if recollecting his thoughts.

We are very familiar with the often used example for an optimist and a pessimist. When a glass is half full, the optimist sees it as half full and the pessimist as half empty. Both are right: the only difference is that the one looks at the positive while the other at the negative side of life. The optimist is more likely to trust others, is more willing to give others a chance, is more willing to take a risk, is more willing to let things unfold and see what happens, and is more hopeful. The pessimist has difficulty trusting others, is more cautious, more concerned about not being deceived or tricked, and is less willing to take a risk.When I visited my older brother a few years ago, he told me during one conversation: “Pappacha (that is my pet name or nick name while growing up), these days you cannot trust anybody.” I asked him: “Does that include you too?” A little perplexed at my unexpected question, with bit of a skeptic smile he replied: “Yes”. I tell people: “if pessimism helps you, keep it”. But I do not know anyone who has been helped by pessimism.From the beginning of humanity, there have been pessimists and doomsayers. All the human progress took place because of optimists who dared to risk their life, made investments of energy and resources, and pursued adventurous explorations that others thought insane. We are willing to climb on the bandwagon of progress that others sacrificed for. Some years ago I bought a piece of land in the heart of Sunset Point on the seashore in cape Kanyakumari (South India). An older brother (not the one mentioned above) and a nephew were with me. When after giving the final word to the broker, I got on a katamaran (three logs tied together that fishermen in South India use) to go into the deep sea with a fisherman, my brother, calling me insane (pichen), and my nephew walked away sad. In the open sea I had the thrill of my life as it was a unique experience. I know many will not take the risk of riding a katmaran in the ocean. Now that the property I bought there has become very valuable, my insanity also went away as far as they are concerned.Life is full of risks. Some take greater risks; most take smaller ones. If one is concerned about the accidents on the road that could take place in spite of being a good driver, one will not drive. I will only advocate reasonable and calculated risks that one can take and live with. There is no way one can experience intense joy without intense pain. The higher the peak one climbs for a unique, indescribable, and delightful view, the lower the valley. It is all a question of contrast. We know the familiar saying that there no gain without pain.In the midst of all the senseless human-caused tragedies and destruction that take place daily, it is difficult to be optimistic. But we have no choice except being optimists even while we take necessary precautions. Humanity’s march towards it destiny cannot be halted by pessimists who put damper on initiatives and even breaks due to their own unfounded fears and anxieties. Optimism is likely to go with encouragement, enthusiasm, and celebration of life.

Once upon a time, two hermits, moved by the desire of sanctifying themselves, lived in a hostile, rocky desert. Their caves faced each other. After years of intense prayer and terrible mortifications, one hermit was convinced that he had arrived at the summit of perfection. The other was equally pious, but also good and kind. He would stop to talk with the pilgrims who visited them once in a long while. He would take care and give hospitality to any one who had lost his way, or even to fugitives – time stolen from meditation and prayer, thought the first hermit, who disapproved even the least shortcomings of the other. To make the other understand in a very visible way, how far he was from sanctity, he decided to place a stone in front of his own cave, every time the other made a mistake – a stone, of course, proportionate to the gravity of the mistake was added. In time, there rose in front of his cave a solid wall closing him in. With all his preoccupation with the other man’s failures, you better imagine what happened to his own spiritual pursuit.